IndyCar: The one piece still missing for Josef Newgarden

By Asher Fair | Oct 3, 2020

Josef Newgarden, Team Penske, IndyCar - Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports /

Josef Newgarden’s win on Friday afternoon means that the Indy 500 is the only race on this year’s IndyCar schedule that he has never won.

Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden did what he had never done before and won at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course on Friday afternoon to cut the points lead of Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon by a whopping 32 points from 72 down to 40 with just two races remaining in the 2020 IndyCar season.

Today’s race at the track and the season finale on the streets of St. Petersburg on Sunday, October 25 are the only two races remaining on the 14-race schedule as the two-time and reigning champions aims to unseat the five-time champion atop the championship standings for the first time this year and do what Dixon has never done before: win back-to-back championships.

But Newgarden’s win on Friday meant more than just closing the gap on Dixon in the championship fight between the only two active multi-time IndyCar champions.

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It meant that Newgarden has won at every single track on the 2020 schedule — except the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval for the Indy 500, the crown jewel race on the calendar.

Following a fifth place finish there in August, he is now 0 for 9 at the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Brickyard oval in Speedway, Indiana with a top finish of third back in May of 2016. As for literally every other track on the 2020 schedule, take a look at what the 29-year-old Hendersonville, Tennessee native has been able to accomplish.

He won at Texas Motor Speedway last year, and he won at Road America in 2018. He is a three-time winner at Iowa Speedway, having won there in 2016, 2019 and 2020, and he is a two-time winner at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, having won there in 2017 and 2020.

He won at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course back in 2017, he won on the streets of St. Petersburg last year, and he has now won at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course after failing to finish in the top six in all of his first seven starts at the track.

Of course, the 2020 schedule did not feature nearly as many venues as were originally scheduled as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

But even looking at the 2021 schedule, the Indy 500 is the race that stands out as the race Newgarden hasn’t won.

Barber Motorsports Park, where he is a three-time winner (2015, 2017 and 2018), and the Raceway on Belle Isle, where he won last year, are set to return to the calendar, as are the streets of Toronto, where he is a two-time winner (2015 and 2017).

He has never won at Portland International Raceway nor WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, but he has only competed in three races and one race, respectively, at those two tracks. The streets of Nashville are an addition to the calendar for next year.

The only other active track where he hasn’t won despite competing there for several years? The streets of Long Beach, another casualty of the 2020 pandemic — and ironically the host of the second most prestigious event on the calendar behind the Indy 500. His top finish there is second place in April of 2019.

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When, if ever, will Newgarden break through and win the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”? The 105th running of the race is scheduled to take place on Sunday, May 30, 2021. Will he be back to victory lane at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on that date, except having won on the oval as opposed to the interior road course?